Factor 5 Lead Gameplay Designer Talks About Superman Game

[Vordan]

Decided to make an entire thread for this because most of you guys don’t check the Clark Kent Appreciation Thread

https://twitter.com/devsalvatrix/sta...848120842?s=21 (start of Tweet thread)

In 2007/2008, I was lead designer on a Superman game that was never released - because the economy crashed hard. It killed our publisher, our studio (Factor 5), and the game.

I have multiple unreleased games through my career, but THIS is the only one I mourn to this day...

The goal was to present super brawls as they were seen in the cartoons and comics. JLU was our main touchstone. We put together this fast video montage to show what everything we wanted to have as gameplay. And we DID IT.

Aerial brawling, large urban environments, crashing through buildings, fast target engagement, knocking your foe into the next block, shockwaves from hits, impact grooves in the streets or building sides… all of it.

We hadn’t seen a game really deliver on that promise before, and to be honest I have yet to see it delivered fully since. We had it fully working as a prototype and were shifting to full production when the crash hit. All the main gameplay was in place and had been proven out.

We also didn’t want to rely on traditional gaming crutches of the IP – kryptonite and fighting robots. There were rules about the big blue boy scout (pre-Snyder obviously), but we were to surround Supes with foes more in his power range.

So I still am sad for what could have been. This was supposed to release alongside the sequel to the Bryan Singer Superman Returns film (which also clearly never happened). Not being able to see this through to release remains the biggest regret of my career.

Anyway, the above 2 videos were touchstone reference that we made early in prepro to communicate to the team and to the stakeholders (DC/WB/Legendary/Brash) where we intended to take the game.

If there is interest, I may dig up some related materials from my archives later.

While the gameplay may have been based on JLU, the environments were based heavily on both the Superman animated series and early 20th century artist Hugh Ferriss - featuring elevated highways, railways, and airships.

In addition to us just appreciating the visual aesthetic (and that is worked with the animated series style), the layers of motion at every elevation in the city created a city that felt alive no matter where you were - important in a game where much takes place in the air.

Everything here is blocky - by intent.

For prototyping, we were establishing playable spaces, activity levels, core functionality, etc.

When the art is more refined, too much feedback starts to focus on the art. "Ugly" art helps keep the focus on where it is needed early on.

[Vordan]

Here’s the “blocky” city they were talking about:

[Vordan]

And... I am just kind of jumping around now.

In the previous cityscape, it might be noticed in addition to vehicles for a sense of of motion, they were also usable props in combat. As were roof and street level details.

(The second image showed what we wanted to avoid.)

[Vordan]

More concept art - characters:
Parademon
Brimstone
Darkseid
Livewire

(Note, I am not the artist of any of the concept art. I was a game designer focused on gameplay vision and elements.)

Livewire and Brimstone I posted in the Villains Appreciation thread.

[Vordan]

And videos! This was our first playable prototype during pre-production. Obviously art is still placeholder, though more polished assets are starting to get swapped in such as Supes and Zod.

But it shows brawling while crashing through offices!

[Vordan]

And this is a target render from pre-production.

The point of the target render is to demonstrate what the intended gameplay might look like in a more art-finished state.

#gamedevelopment
#bluesteel

And that’s everything, now you can all be depressed alongside me that this didn’t get to be finished

[HsssH]

So it was going to be like Snyder's Man of Steel?

[Vordan]

So it was going to be like Snyder's Man of Steel?

Yeah but it would’ve been using Arkham rules where Batman can beat half naked thugs unconscious and leave them out in subzero temps, yet none of them will ever die

Funnily enough Zod was in this and the demo video suggests they had the idea to let you play as him. That would’ve been cool.